26. Beatriz #2
Everyone cheers without thinking—gaudy and wonderful and completely perfect for a night like this.
Gael whistles, Diego yells something, Carlos pretends he didn’t get misty eyed and fails, Niko lifts his cup high and yells “?Salud!” Andrea wipes her eyes and immediately denies it, then kisses Papi on the cheek with a loud smacking sound that makes him scowl.
We drink. We hug. The music climbs again. Someone shouts, “Another song!” and of course another song happens. The party tilts back into fun like the emotional gear-change was always part of the plan.
I walk to Alejandro, and he meets me halfway. No big speech—he already gave me the biggest one on a field with a city watching. He just curls a hand around my neck and leans his forehead to mine, the center of our little universe settling where it always does.
“You okay?” he asks under the music.
“I’m perfect,” I say. “I mean it.”
We sway without trying. Shortly after, Camila finds me again and pulls me aside for a second that becomes minutes because our second always does.
We sit on a low wall with plates balanced on our knees, and she tells me about the doctor in the same voice she used when she told me she thought she might be pregnant, sparkling and excited.
“Gael cried,” she admits, laughing a little at him and also not at all. “He said it was sweat.”
“I will tease him about that forever,” I promise.
I glance over at my soon-to-be husband— God, I love saying that in my head —and watch him help Papi re-secure the canopy when the breeze gives it ideas.
He ties a knot like a sailor and smiles at something my father says, and my chest does a thing that is both calm and wild.
I let myself soak it in. This man, this family, this city.
The way the music keeps flipping from salsa to bachata because whoever made the playlist understands balance.
The sight of Andrea trying and failing to tie a balloon string while Niko takes it and does one smooth twist just to show off; she narrows her eyes at him, then grins like she hates him not at all.
We dance again. Alejandro spins me once, twice, and then pulls me back in so close I can smell the faint clean of his shirt and whatever cologne he won’t admit he wears. He slides his cheek against my temple and says, “You know what I’m thinking about?”
“Tell me.”
“How your look is going to ruin me at the wedding. Completely.”
“You are dramatic.”
“True. But in this case, accurate.”
I mash my face into his shoulder and laugh, and it vibrates through both of us. “I can’t believe we’re here,” I whisper when the laugh drains away, honesty spilling. “I can’t believe my father toasted you. Toasted us.”
Alejandro’s answer is not a sentence. It’s his hand closing around me harder, and the press of his mouth at my hairline. He doesn’t need to say more. I understand him without it.
Later, when the moon lifts and the string lights hum brighter to compete, plates are scraped, and someone finally remembers the giant container of cut fruit sweating in the cooler—thanks, Diego—the party eases into that perfect late phase.
People sit in small circles. The music hums at a level where your heart can still pick up the beat.
The ocean keeps doing its job. My father stands with his hands behind his back, like a man learning how to unclench.
He talks to Gael like they actually know each other.
He asks Carlos about his mother’s knee. He rests a hand on Andrea's head for a second like he used to when we were little and we’d fall asleep in the car, then lets it fall because she’s grown and he’s learning.
I walk to the edge of the water with Alejandro for a minute of quiet that isn’t really quiet because parties echo, but it feels like it anyway.
The tide runs in and washes over our ankles; I squeal because I didn’t move fast enough.
He laughs, lifts me out of reach, and sets me down again like I’m the easiest thing he’s ever carried.
“You know,” I say, holding his fingers out at my side so our hands look like a small bridge, “Mami would have loved this.”
“Yes,” he says.
“She would have made everyone feel at home and they all would have fallen in love with her.”
“They would have. I did. I do,” he says, and I smile because he's right.
He kisses me there, in the half-dark, our friends thirty feet away arguing about whether the best bachata is old or new. It’s not a dramatic kiss. It’s simple and certain.
“Dance with me again,” I say, tugging him back toward the lights, and he follows because of course he does.
Celia comes back on—“Quimbara” this time—and the energy pops.
We move with everyone, a messy line of hips and shoulders and hands doing what they want.
Camila stays seated and claps off-beat because she’s never been good at staying still when she’s this happy.
Gael keeps trying to sit but people keep calling him, and he goes, smiling like a man whose life keeps giving him exactly what he asked for.
Niko tells a joke I miss but I know it’s inappropriate because Andrea smacks him and then laughs so hard she has to sit down.
Diego tries to dip Carlos and almost drops him. Alejandro catches them both—obviously.
At some point, Papi starts to pack leftovers.
Alejandro falls in beside him to label containers, and I go help because it makes me feel like we’re doing something together.
The three of us stand there, stacking rice and chicken and corn, and it strikes me that this might be what love looks like sometimes, foil and plastic wrap.
Not fireworks—containers. Not glitter—labels. Practical tenderness.
When we finally, finally pull the last of the trash to the bin and switch off the speaker, we say goodnight to the ocean.
Everyone hugs everyone in loops—Camila kissing my cheek and whispering “wedding dress shopping next,” Gael promising to send me song suggestions, Carlos asking if I’ll bring my famous pico to the next cookout even though his is objectively better, Niko inviting himself to my father’s house next Sunday like he’s already family.
Andrea points two fingers at her eyes and then at mine, which means she’s calling me after midnight to gossip.
Niko salutes me with a lime wedge, then holds Andrea's car door for her like he’s not a clown half the time.
She rolls her eyes, gets in, and blows me a kiss.
Papi hugs me last. He doesn’t say anything; he doesn’t need to.
He presses his chin to the top of my head the way he did when I was small, and I feel, for a second, like both times exist at once—the little girl and the woman, both of us loved.
When Alejandro and I get to the car, he opens the door for me like always, and as I climb in, I catch my breath because I don’t want this night to end. Not the laughter. Not the music. Not the way the sand stuck to everyone’s ankles like glitter.
We pull away, our headlights catching the edges of the waves and the curve of the dunes. I rest my head back and look at him. He’s still smiling, and I realize Niko was right, that serious face is gone. In its place is something open that belongs to me.
I thread our fingers together on the console and squeeze. “I’m going to say something cheesy,” I warn.
“Proceed,” he says, eyes on the road, thumb stroking my knuckles.
“I can’t believe this is my life,” I whisper. “I can’t believe… we get this. All of this.”
He glances over, and his smile finds the soft version of itself. “Believe it,” he says simply. “Because I’m going to make sure our life stays like this. Happy. Loved. Full.”
I turn my hand and kiss the back of his. My ring catches a bit of the dashboard light and winks at me.
I can't wait to marry this man.